did your ears still ring with shouts of “hosanna!” as they scoffed and mocked you, taunting the “King of the Jews”?

did the crumbs of the bread you’d broken just hours earlier fall from where they had gathered as they struck you and ripped out your beard?

did the smell of the anointing oil from the day before mingle with the blood flowing from your thorned crown as you hung broken?

did your hands—now pierced through—remember the healing touch to the servant’s ear, just yesterday, in the garden?

did you—when you refused the sour wine—recall the words you had spoken mere hours ago, that you would “not drink from this fruit of the vine” again until you drink it with us in glory?

did the taste of that last supper’s wine linger on your tongue, mixing with the vinegar they thrust to your lips just moments before you uttered your last?

did you—when you called out in your forsakenness—look forward to the soon-coming promise you would give, “surely i am with you always”?

did you—even as you said “it is finished” and gave up your spirit—notice the trembling of earth and heaven as it felt the weight of what was accomplished?

did your body—even then—ache for its coming reconciliation, resurrection, redemption, glorification?

this savior:

stripped so that we might be clothed.

mocked so that we might be honored.

broken so that we might be restored.

crucified so that we might be given life.

(meditations based on Matthew 26-28; Isaiah 50:6; John 12, 19-20; Psalm 22)